


Alternatives to Traditional Learning Styles

by onemechanicalalligator



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: ADHD, Dyslexia, Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Reading Aloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemechanicalalligator/pseuds/onemechanicalalligator
Summary: Five times Abed read aloud to his friends, and one time a friend read aloud to him.
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Britta Perry, Abed Nadir & Jeff Winger, Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Shirley Bennett & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir
Comments: 20
Kudos: 104





	Alternatives to Traditional Learning Styles

**one.**

Britta is hanging out with Abed in his dorm room one afternoon. It took some time, but the two of them finally figured out that “hanging out,” for them, often means each kind of doing their own thing in the same space, occasionally stopping to chat or get a snack. 

Today, Britta is reading a book while Abed watches a movie, and both of them are curled up together on the couch. She starts with her head on Abed’s shoulder, but gradually tilts the other direction until she’s solidly in her own corner. In turn, he moves to his own corner and puts his feet up on the table. 

When his movie is about half over, Abed notices Britta yawning out of the corner of his eye. He wonders if she got enough sleep last night, if she stayed up too late or got up too early. He’s not sure if it would be rude to ask, so he decides to err on the side of caution and keep his mouth shut.

She turns a page and snuggles into her corner of the couch, and Abed continues to watch the movie, until she yawns again and Abed notices her eyes are halfway shut.

“Do you want to take a nap?” he asks.

“No,” Britta murmurs stubbornly.

“Are you sure?” he presses.

“Abed,” Britta whines. “I’m awake, I swear.”

“Okay,” Abed says, but he keeps watching as her eyes continue to close and her head droops.

Finally, he scoots over on the couch until he’s sitting right next to her. Then he gently takes the book from her hand.

“Show me where you are,” Abed says.

She reaches over and points out the spot on the page, and Abed picks up where she left off, reading aloud to Britta. She slithers down until she’s on her side, and she lays her head in Abed’s lap. He glances down once as he’s reading to see a smile on her face and her eyes completely closed. 

He reads until he hears her breathing change, becoming deep and even, and then he puts the book down and grabs the blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over a sleeping Britta.

**two.**

Abed finds Jeff alone in the study room the afternoon after they’ve been assigned their first non-group assignment in anthropology. Everyone else has gone home for the day, but Jeff is sitting in his usual spot, the textbook open in front of him, and Abed walks in just in time to see him punch the table.

“Are you okay?” Abed asks, sitting down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeff mutters. He rubs his knuckles. He stares back at the book, as if he’s reading, but even from where he’s seated, Abed can see that his eyes aren’t moving at all.

“Is that the reading for class?”

Jeff nods, not even bothering to look at Abed. He’s tapping his fingers on the table in a frantic pattern, and now his eyes are squeezed shut. 

Abed knows the look of someone who _can’t read._ Not necessarily _can’t read ever,_ but _can’t read easily,_ or _can’t read right now, at this moment, when it is crucial that they be reading._ He recognizes this look on Jeff, but he’s pretty sure Jeff doesn’t want him to address it, so he doesn’t. 

“Do you mind if I read out loud?” he carefully asks instead, glancing over at Jeff, who opens his eyes. “I’m doing that chapter right now, too, and sometimes reading aloud helps me retain information a little better. But I won’t do it if it’ll bother you.”

“No, uh...that’s fine,” Jeff says. “Go ahead.”

Abed begins to read, and after awhile, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jeff start to relax a little. Abed reads the entire chapter, the whole assigned reading, and then he carefully closes the textbook and puts it in his bag.

Both of them are silent for a few minutes while Abed organizes his notes and Jeff continues to tap his fingers on the table.

“You did that for me, didn’t you?” Jeff finally asks. 

Abed shrugs. “Reading is hard sometimes.”

“It’s hard for me _always,”_ Jeff admits. “I have dyslexia.”

“That makes sense,” Abed says.

“It does?” Jeff eyes him suspiciously. 

“Sure,” Abed says easily. “You faked a college degree, despite obviously being smart enough to practice law. You’ve been having Annie do your homework for you this whole time. And we usually have our reading as a group assignment, so you don’t actually have to do it.”

“Don’t tell the others, okay?” Jeff says, his lips pursed.

“Okay,” Abed agrees. “But you know _you_ can tell them. They’d understand.”

Jeff shrugs, and Abed doesn’t push him on it. 

“Hey, uh...thank you,” Jeff finally says as he starts to pack up his things.

“You’re welcome.”

**three.**

Abed stops by Shirley’s house to pick up a DVD she borrowed. No one answers when he rings the bell, so he lets himself in and he finds her in the midst of a tornado.

Not a literal tornado, but one made up of a whole bunch of toys and couch cushions and pillows and papers and crayons and dishes and unidentified spills. Shirley’s sons are nowhere to be found. And Shirley, poor Shirley, is in the middle of it all, sitting at the dining room table, her head in her hands. There are textbooks laid out across the table, and Abed’s DVD waiting at one end.

He picks up the DVD and slips it in his bag.

“Hey, Shirley,” he says. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, sure,” she says faintly. “Jordan and Elijah just left to go to a friend’s house, and I finally got Ben down for his nap. This house is quiet for the first time all day. And now I have _this_ to deal with.” She gestures at the mess with one hand. “On top of that, I haven’t done any of my reading for this week.”

“Do you need help?” Abed asks.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Shirley replies. “Thank you, pumpkin. But you don’t know where anything goes, so I’m afraid it would just take even longer.”

“Okay,” Abed says. “Well, how about if I read to you while you clean?”

“What now?”

“The readings for class,” Abed clarifies. “Annie will have the notes tomorrow, but I can read the chapters to you, if you want, while you clean. That way you can multitask.”

“Oh, Abed,” Shirley breathes. “That would be so helpful. Thank you.”

Abed smiles at her and picks up the first book. He starts to read as Shirley begins decluttering the living room. By the time he finishes reading from the last book, she’s on her hands and knees getting the last stain out of the carpet.

“You have a nice reading voice,” Shirley says. “Thank you so much, Abed. That was a huge help.”

No sooner has she finished speaking than Abed hears Ben start to cry from the other room, and then Jordan and Elijah come barreling through the front door. Shirley grins and rolls her eyes.

“It never ends around here,” she laughs.

“I’ll be on my way, then,” Abed says. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Abed.”

**four.**

Abed walks into the living room just as Troy kicks a hardcover book across the floor and lets out a strangled noise. He looks like he’s about to cry. He’s surrounded by notebooks, highlighters, and his laptop.

“Troy?” Abed says softly. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” Troy sobs. “I can’t--this is _so stupid._ I’m trying to read a chapter of this novel. For my class. But I _can’t do it._ The words keep running together and my eyes jump all over the page and every time I think I’ve read a whole paragraph, I realize I was thinking about something else the whole time.”

“I’m going to ask you a question, but don’t get mad okay?” Abed says, biting his lip.

Troy nods.

“Is it possible that you may have forgotten to take your ADHD medication today?”

Troy’s face crumples, and Abed takes that as a _yes._ Troy forgets pretty often, and Abed is always trying to help him come up with new ways to remember.

“It’s okay,” Abed says. “Hey. You’re okay.”

“I’m _not,”_ Troy cries. _“I can’t read.”_

“How about if I read to you?” Abed suggests. He walks across the room and picks up the book, takes it with him to the couch, and sits down. “Do you want to try?”

“I guess,” Troy says warily. “Okay. Yeah.”

He tells Abed what chapter he’s been assigned, and Abed opens the book and begins to read.

As he reads, he notices a change in Troy. He starts out sprawled on the floor, tense and distraught. After a little while, he starts to relax, and he wipes the tears away from his cheeks. Abed notices his shoulders fall, and he starts to take deeper breaths. Not long after that he makes his way up to the couch where he sits down next to Abed, listening intently.

When he finishes, Abed sticks a piece of scrap paper in the book to keep their place and sets it down on the coffee table.

“Did that help?” he asks. “If it did, we can do it that way from now on. I don’t mind.”

“It helped a lot,” Troy replies. “And I would love that.”

“It’s a deal, then,” Abed says, and he smiles, and Troy does, too.

“Thank you, Abed,” says Troy.

**five.**

Abed is putting the dishes away when Annie comes into the apartment. She’s loaded down with her backpack and an armful of books, and her skin looks paler than usual. She sets the books on the dining room table and then falls into a chair, still wearing her backpack.

“Annie?” Abed says.

“Hey, Abed,” she replies, her voice thin. “I was studying at the library, but I’ve got a terrible headache. I think I’m going to lay down.”

“Okay,” Abed says, and Annie picks up her books and disappears into her bedroom.

An hour or so later, Abed is sitting on the couch when she emerges, and she doesn’t really look any better than she did before, in Abed’s opinion. She’s wearing sweats and her hair is tied up in a loose bun.

“Feeling any better?” Abed asks.

“Not really,” she admits. “But I have a bunch of reading to do for my classes and I can’t afford to waste this time sleeping.”

“Annie, that’s crazy,” Abed says. “Your health should be the most important thing.”

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, knowing I have so much to do,” Annie insists. 

Abed stands up and takes the books out of Annie’s arms. He sets them on the coffee table and guides Annie to the couch to lay down. Then he ducks into the blanket fort and finds his blackout sleep mask. He returns to the living room and fastens it over Annie’s eyes.

“How much do you have to read?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Annie mumbles. “The sections are all marked with post-it notes.”

Abed takes the top book from the pile and begins to read aloud to Annie. He stops after each passage to see if she’s still awake and find out how her head is feeling. 

Three books in, her head seems to be doing a little better.

Four books in, she’s fast asleep.

**plus one.**

Britta hasn’t lived with Abed and Annie for very long, so some things are still new to her. Some of the house rules, for example, or where things are kept. Or what to do when Abed has a Bad Day.

It’s evening, and Britta is home alone, hanging out in the living room, when the front door opens. Abed stumbles in, his hood over his head and sunglasses on.

“Hey, Ab--” Britta starts to say, but Abed shakes his head and walks straight into his bedroom. A moment later she hears a rustling sound, and then a crashing sound, and she runs into the room to make sure everything is okay.

The curtains are tangled up on the floor, and Abed is sitting in the middle of them, rocking back and forth, his legs pulled up to his chest. He’s banging his head against his knees, and his fingers are threaded into his hair. It’s hard to see with his hood up, but Britta thinks he might be pulling at it.

“Are you okay, Abed?” Britta asks softly.

Abed stops rocking and hitting his head. He turns to look at Britta. She can see that his lips are chapped and his face is pale.

“No,” he says, his voice strained. “It’s a Bad Day.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she asks.

“Do you think...you could try to put my curtains back up?” he says hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to pull them down. And it’s _so bright_ in here.”

The room is fairly dim, and Abed is still wearing sunglasses, but Britta doesn’t comment on it.

“Sure,” she says. “Just a sec.”

It takes a few minutes, but she manages to re-hang the curtains on the tension rod without too much trouble. Abed breathes an audible sigh of relief when she finally pulls them closed.

“Thank you so much,” he says.

Britta feels good being useful, and she wants to do more to help Abed, but she doesn’t know what.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asks, glancing around the room. “Do you want me to…” She notices a science fiction book on Abed’s nightstand. “Do you want me to read to you?”

Abed doesn’t answer right away. He pulls his hands out of his hair and lets them drop at his sides, and then he leans back a little so he’s against the side of the bed.

“Yes, please,” he finally says. “Just...if you could keep your voice low, that would help.”

“Sure thing,” Britta says. She picks up the book and begins to read.

After a little while, Abed’s legs relax and he lets them fall straight out in front of him. Some time later, he takes off his hood, and eventually the glasses follow. Finally, when he’s ready, he crawls up on the bed and lays down next to Britta, his head in her lap. She gently plays with his hair.

She reads until he’s asleep, and then she moves him so his head is on the pillow and tucks him into bed. She marks their spot in the book and puts it back on the bedside table.

“Goodnight, Abed,” she whispers on her way out, and closes the door behind her.


End file.
